My favourite novel right now is Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest. While surfing through patterns I came across a few journal covers and book socks. I decided this morning that my paperback copy of Palimpsest needs a proper cover with accompanying bookmarker (possibly attached to the cover itself).

While going through my yarn I found a skein of this soft green caron’s and thought it would make a very lovely cover with the proper button attached with it.

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I have since abandoned the soft green, after knitting up about 5 rows I decided that the green just wasn’t the way to go and opted for an old ball of sandy tan that had a rougher, and thicker consistency.

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I have several bumble bee accents that I may attach as well, and possibly some flowers and pearls. All in the theme of the book, you see. The book is full of beautiful prose and vision. It follows four strangers: A Japanese woman named Sei who is obsessed with trains, A book binder named Ludovico, A locksmith named Oleg, and November the bee-keeper. In some way I wanted to put a part of each character in the cover. So there are bees, and of course the book itself, keys, and for Sei, I wasn’t sure how to represent her. There are scenes where she passes through mystic and magical train cars, and so I thought that adding some stars and blue crystals may be able to represent her properly (Sei does, after all, have blue hair). So now I have a representation of each character in some small way.

I will more than likely add on all the accents and details after the initial knitting of the cover has been completed. I’m going to use two large squares of polished coconut as the closures (the large squares with crosses in them pictured with all my accents) and possibly use the larger bee buttons as closures as well and leave the smaller bees as accents. Instead of ribbon, I plan on weaving in the string of pearls - if it sits well, that is. If not I may have to improvise with something else.
the inner book marker will have some beads, and leaf charms as weights at the end.

I’m excited!

• Starting with Jeny’s Stretchy Slipknot Cast-On
• One set of 8 rows plus the 2 foundation rows give me approximately 2”. I need to repeat the set of 8 approximately 8 or 9 more times for proper length to wrap around book & have tuck flaps.\
• Second repeat puts it at 3”. Each repeat of rows is approx. 1.5” or so.
• 3rd repeat makes the fabric approximately 4”.
• 4th repeat puts it just over 5”.
• 5th repeat is just under 6.5”
• 6th repeat, approx. 8”
• 7th repeat, 9”
• 8th repeat, 10”
• 9th repeat + Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off = 11”

I like how the bottom edge of the seed stitch border pulls up a little. I may keep it that way when I stitch the flaps together for the cover pocket… we’ll see.
However, I don’t like how the cover pooches at the thickness of the fabric. I may alter the pattern slightly so that there’s less of a bulge between the cover and the pages. I think straps of yarn on the inside should be pretty good, and much thinner. Which means I won’t have to do as many repeats of the rows before I’ve completed the outer portion of the cover. I may test out some black felt, and see how the cover reacts to the thickness of the felt. If it’s not too bad, I can just stitch some of that on instead. :)
felt seems to be a pretty good substitute. I’ll just have to hand stitch it all together in the end. I’m still wondering where I’ll put the blue crystals.